Jasper Place – The third time wasn’t the charm for the St. Albert Skyhawks.
Saturday’s 61-53 loss to the Jasper Place Rebels marked the third straight year the Skyhawks settled for second place in the metro Edmonton division one women’s basketball playoffs.
“It’s tough. For some of us it’s our last year so we don’t have another year to come back and play the Rebels again,” said Sam Dargis, a Grade 12 point guard, after only the ninth loss in 35 games for the Skyhawks.
The Rebels finished 15-0 in division one with no Grade 12s and eight Grade 11s on their 12-player roster, while the Skyhawks are 0-4 against the No. 2 4A team in the province and 13-2 in league play.
“We knew we were the underdogs going in so we didn’t really feel pressure at all,” said Dargis, a third-year Skyhawk with Jamie Bain and Aphia Ward as the only Grade 12s in the eight-player lineup for the final.
“Overall, we really played well. I feel happy with how we played.”
In the second quarter, the Skyhawks strung together 10 consecutive points to lead 22-11 and twice held 10-point advantages before the Rebels closed out the half with five in a row to trail 27-22 at the break. Bain sank seven of her 10 points in the quarter, including a three-ball to make it 27-17 with 2:52 remaining.
“We just played our game. We didn’t think it was a city final, we just kind of played like it was a normal league game,” Dargis said.
The Rebels, backed by a vocal home-court cheering section, rediscovered their shooting form that was missing in the first half during a 19-4 run in the third quarter, highlighted by three-pointers with 6:54 to go to knot it at 29 and with 3:39 left to lead 41-31.
“We knew they were going to push back but I think we weren’t specifically ready for it just yet,” Dargis said. “Maybe the pressure got to us or we just got high in our own heads.”
It was 44-36 after three quarters, when the Rebels kick-started the last 10 minutes with their sixth three of the night. The margin grew to 12 points after the two-minute mark as the Skyhawks struggled dropping the ball through the hoop.
“Sometimes we took selfish shots and that ending up leading to turnovers and them scoring so we couldn’t really recover from that,” Dargis said.
Marina Cain gave the Skyhawks some hope with back-to-back threes 22 seconds apart to close the gap to four points with 1:26 to play.
After a pair of misses by Ward from the free-throw line, the Skyhawks called a timeout with 1:03 remaining. The Rebels would go on to hit two out of four free throws, followed by the Morgan Mudge’s three-point play with 27 ticks on the clock. Mudge scored seven of her game-high 18 points in the last period.
The last of Cain’s team-high 12 points was a free throw with only a few seconds to go. The Grade 11 Skyhawks also drained three of the team’s five threes in the loss.
“Marina shot really well. She really put us back into it. Then, unfortunately, with a minute left it’s not the best time to come back because then we have to foul to get the ball,” said Dargis, who chipped in with 11 points.
After the loss, the Skyhawks huddled up in a dingy stairwell outside the gym for head coach John Dedrick’s pep talk.
“Don’t hold your heads down, hold your heads high,” he stressed. “We’re playing with a team of eight and they’re playing with a team of 12.”
Dedrick blamed himself for the loss. “I didn’t do my job. I didn’t prepare you well enough.”
The St. Albert Catholic High School athletic director also noted the players had “upheld the tradition” of the senior team’s program with the Skyhawks’ fifth-straight trip to the final and third in a row since the merger of the metro and public Edmonton leagues. The Skyhawks won the premier (now division one) championships in 2010, 2012 and 2013 during a run of six finals in the last seven years.
This is also the third 4A season for the Skyhawks after a record-breaking four consecutive 3A provincial banners. At 4A provincials they won bronze in 2014 and last year they placed a disappointing fifth while going 33-5 overall and lost five players to graduation.
The 16-team provincials tip off March 17 in Red Deer. The Rebels, Skyhawks, Spruce Grove Panthers and Paul Kane Blues are seeded one to four, respectively, out of the Edmonton zone. The Panthers are ranked fourth, the Skyhawks are ninth and Paul Kane is 10th in 4A.
Dargis, 17, has high hopes the Skyhawks will rebound with a winning performance at provincials.
“We know we’re going to see a lot of good teams so we’re ready for it. It’s going to be good competition and a good test for our team so we’re excited,” said the Beaumont resident. “Hopefully we’ll have Payton (McNeill, a Grade 11 post sidelined with a concussion) back too so we’ll have another player on the bench. She is a very good player to have back too. She brings a lot of muscle so that’s a good thing.
“We’ve just got to keep working hard and tweak a couple of things we noticed that were very obvious in the city final, like when our shooter got face guarded. It’s hard to get a shot up when their hands are always in our face so maybe we have to harder screens and stuff like that.”
FREE THROWS: The junior lady Skyhawks are the division three champions after beating the Louis St. Laurent Barons 60-49 in Saturday’s final at Jasper Place.
The Skyhawks also defeated the Barons 39-33 in league play.
Visit www.stalbertgazette.com to view the Skyhawks’ championship picture.
The team of 12 Grade 10s, coached by Lee Burak and his daughter, Katie, finished 10-1 and the Barons were 6-5.
This is the third year for a division three final in metro junior women’s basketball.
The league consists of nine division one teams, 11 division two teams and nine division three teams.
